not that i actually expect to get sympathy for this, but this place SUCKS when it's raining (ie all week). 18 hrs on an airplane and it's barely warmer than WI.

on the plus side, (1) there are no tornados, and (2) i have watched some wicked Japanese TV. (have you guys seen japenese fashion mullets?)





going for a walk; have a good week, folks..

Make sure you stay upstream from any earthen dams while you are out on your walk.

lol@ nerd





I'm on vaca in NY and I'm still checking it.

PS dr bill are you in nyc this weekend?

yeah, no shit...natural disasters galore.


i feel like i'm stuck in Lost in Translation. Honolulu is a weird mixure of Asian culture and misplaced American businessmen. meanwhile i'm trapped in the hotel bar as it rains... (but w/no Bill Murray.)



take it back.

Kat, here's some things to do on Oahu when it's raining:

• Find La Mariana Sailing Club and order a "Speckled Gecko." If anyone says "I'm Gecko," tell him Freddie Freelance says "Hi." Address: 50 Sand Island Road and Auiki Street, Phone: 848 2800
• Visit Bishop Museum in Honolulu, the best collection of ancient Hawaiian artifacts in the Islands.
• Have a drink at the House Without a Key bar on the beach in Waikiki at sunset.
• Have a "Paniolo Breakfast" and a "Plate Lunch" at a Mom-&-Pop restaurant. If you're not feeling too adventurous try the Chicken Katsu, it's some of the best fried chicken you'll find.
• Shop at Hawaiian Antique Center (932 Kapahulu Ave), but don't expect to find anything cheap. The place is kind of a Hawaiiana museum where everything's for sale.
• Shop for trinkets for your friends at home at the ABC Store, or go to a local Owned-&-Operated store and see if they'll give you a better deal than the marked price.
• Go to Matsumoto's for Shaved Ice.
• Shop at The International Market Place on the Kalakaua Ave. Strip in Waikiki.
• Shop at a Goodwill Thrift Shop, there are 3 in Honolulu and have the best selection of cheap used Aloha shirts.

I'm sorry that it's raining, wunderground.com says it'll stop Monday Morning and start again Monday Afternoon.

wow! you're awesome. (do you secretly live here?) thank you for taking the time to write that out. i will let you know how my last day goes w/your suggestions

I'm a big fan of Hawaiiana/Tiki/Exotica, I've been to Oahu & Maui before & did some research beforehand, and I've got some friends & family in the Islands.

Are you staying in Waikiki? Check out the Hawaiiana Hotel, it's less expensive than the Mega-Hotels/Resorts and has a cool '60s/Island vibe.

I fully endorse this. I will be in Hawaii in Sep and this is certainly one thing I'll be doing. There really is nothing like sitting in that place watching the sun go down whilst sipping on a cool drink and watching the hula girl do her thing.

excellent advice

Got any suggestions for things to do on Maui...?

Heading there in three weeks...

Thanks, I'll hang-up and listen for my answer.

K-

Do an all-day sailboat charter out of Lahaina to another island (Kauai, Molokai or Lanai) for snorkeling and lunch.

Ride the bus to the top of Haleakala to watch the sunrise, then ride down to the bottom on rented bikes.

Which part of the island? Having a Plate Lunch is something you can do anywhere, as is shopping at the ABC Store or having a shaved ice.

If you're in Lahaina you should check out the Art Fair under the Banyan Tree, every first & third weekend. If you've got cash to spend order some sandals from Mike the Sandalmaker, some of the most comfortable shoes you'll ever own. Walk along Ka'anapali Beach. Use Classy Taxi to get around, and ask for the '23 Ford Model A Phaeton. Go snorkeling at Molokini, you need to use a boat to get there & they'll supply you with gear. If you rent your own use "Snorkle Bob's," they're the best service. Bring salami & hide a little piece in your trunks when snorkling, you'll be the most popular one on the reef. Mama's Fish House is good for fish, but it's Expensive, Sam Choy's Maui is great. Visit the 7 Sacred Pools (it's a long hike but a great one) but not during the dry season. The Road to Hana will probably void your rental car insurance, and the 7 Sacred Pools is the best part anyway, turn around & go back after that. You can can get pot anywhere on the island (or at least I could, must've been the long hair...), but you can pick wild hemp on most of the trails so you don't have to. Stay in a Condo instead of a Hotel/Resort, in fact say in This one.

Hey hey...love the search engine.
And nice to see some ideas on what to do.
Weather for me is looking great 80 and sunny.
Flying into Honolulu, spending a few days on O'ahu then flying to the big island to hopefully see the active volcano and do lots of stargazing.
Of course, flying stand by means there's a chance it won't happen. Though slight. If we don't get there we'll be in Houston and will probably rent a car and drive to Austin. Always need a back up plan.

Heading there Friday.
Musically, I love slat key and some of the other trad music. It's amazing how large this genre is with several island stations playing nothing but Hawaiian music. Good way to get psyched.
I should be getting my first laptop on the UPS truck today. So, I hoe to be able to post on occasion from there. Yeah, I know...what a loser I am.
-

I LOVE JAPANESE FASHION MULLETS. I THINK IM GONNA GO WITH IT THIS SUMMER AS SOON AS I GET A NEW FLAT IRON!

Good to see you, Kat. Post more often.

Yeah, always funny resurrecting old threads and seeing who's not around anymore.

she is not back
note the dates of the first posts.

Yeah, but I'll be kicking this thread up during the next couple weeks.

This will be my first trip/vacation/holiday with a PC in tow.
I plan on messing around with digital cam and upping the results to various places...ummm...like here.
Off to the airport.
Aloha

So, everything went perfectly. Got on both flights and now am waking up in Waikiki at 5am.
Was planning on upping some pix already but here's the only bummer. My Canon Power Shot S1 shows only a black screen. Turns out some CCD sensor is bad. They've made a recall on them. Good news is they'll supposedly fix it no charge even out of warranty. Bad news is that I cam all the wyt to Hawaii with a broken camera.
Luckily my girl has a nice pocket sized Kodak digital which we used to take pix yesterday. Now the problem is the USB cable I brought doesn't fit her camera. I did see a Ritz camera store last night so I'll be hunting one down today.
Aloha.

In the meantime, listening to Cleveland news radio where there's huge winter storm going on. Over a foot already and another foot today. Nice to be in paradise.

Up early, being that it's 5 am. No time change in Hawaii. One full day in paradise while my family and friends dig out from two feet of snow back home.
Here's what that looks like, courtesy of a friend's pix he sent yesterday.
[img]http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p142/radiohannibal/snowstorm2008march001.jpg[/img

Here's me in the complete antithesis, on the beach at Waikiki with Diamond Head in the background.


Drinking a new beer for me


My girlfriend at the canal


First day boogie boarding, little wave action at Waikiki beach. Hoping for better when he start hitting north shore. And, yes, I wish I could surf. Also, stepped on damn sea urchin and my heel hurts a bit with those black slivers stuff under my skin. A common occurence here.

Back from the pool. Now off to Duke's to see The Wild Hawaiian, Henry Kapono.
His myspace page

Here's a clip of him at Duke's on a Sunday. In fact, there's even a song called that on the MySpace page.

I know, rubbin' it in. Ya'll pissed at me?

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Nope. Only because I'll be there in two weeks.

Rob, where're you staying in Waikiki? Did you take my advice & stay at the Hawaiiana Hotel?

No, staying at Ohana East, two blocks from the beach and Duke's statue. It's owned by Outrigger. But the main reason is our airline rate is amazing.

Taking off to see the whales in a Zodiac in under an hour. 6:30am our time. Then renting a car for the rest of the week to start hitting north shore beaches.
Haven't hit the Bar Without A Key yet.
And WTF is with the ABC stores? There's more of them than grains of sand on the beach.

When you're out on the North Shore, be sure to hit up one of the shrimp trucks. Yum yum yum.
Oh and Ted's Bakery, home of Chocolate Haupia Pie. There's lots of good turtle watching at the appropriately named Turtle Bay. Wah, I wanna go back.

That would have been funny if you had been here same time. Good for you. Hope this is working as a way to get you more psyched. No time to post pix form last night. It'll have to wait.

First off...in order to get psyched for a trip here or just to get a tropical feel listen to KINE an FM station in Honolulu that plays Hawaiian music.

Next, some pix from yesterday.

Me leaning back with Henry Kopono and band jammin'


Another amazing sunset on Waikiki with a cruise ship in sight


At the Waikiki beach there's a performance area where traditional music and culture from all sorts of different island organizations get their moment in the spotlight. Here's a pic from last night's.


Had one of those never forget lifetime experiences this morning. No time to talk about it now. Off to roam Waikiki once more and drink. Plus, a bit tipsy after Mia Tias and Pina Coladas by the pool. I'll post about that tomorrow when I awake. Then we rent a car and start searching for the perfect wave.

so jealous I'm gonna punch myself in the stomach, never been outta the continental

good pix though Rob, way cool

Thanks Jimmy.

So, as I said, yesterday morning was one of those experiences you'll remember for a lifetime. We went whale/dolphin watching/snorkeling. We chose SeaHawaii because they didn't tout their on board buffet. Many of these outfits are on large boats with "tourists". Might as well just go to an aquarium for as close up you'll be.

SeaHawaii is run by two native brothers, Walter and Tommy. Great guys. Walter picked us up at 6:30am for the hour drive to the west coast.

We boarded the small zodiac boat and headed out to sea. We had nothing but good luck.

About 10 minutes out we spotted a whale. Over the course of the two hour trip we saw that whale and another surface a few times, spout water, and breech 5 times!

Soon after the whale spotting we came across a school of Spinner dolphins. They were in fairly deep water of about 40 feet. It's on the verge of too risky due to shark territory. They just weren't coming in any closer so the decision was made to jump anyway.

We all jumped in and followed the school for awhile. We frightened them so they swam at the bottom . Still, because of the amazing clarity of the water that day we were able to see them easily. Yet another piece of luck. Oh, and the Pacific was very calm.

We boarded the boat when we lost track of the school. About 10 minutes later we found them again and dove back in. As before they headed to the bottom. We again followed them above. Suddenly they all began surfacing about 50 feet in front of us. It was heart stopping.

Back on board the boat we headed closer to shore to snorkel over the coral reefs. We swam amazingly close (5-10 feet) with giant turtles and saw a great array of colorful fish.

If you aver head here SeaHawaii is who to hook up with. I tried taking some pix of the dolphins and whale but no luck.

I'll post a couple pix of the boat.

Yes! Love this thread!

The zodiac boat and us on it.





Last night and yet another amazing sunset, this time from the rooftop bar at the Marriott in Waikiki.


Then we found a great sushi bar called Odoriko on Koa Ave. right behind the Hyatt Regency.
At the bar, pic taken by sushi chef, Taka. A great gentleman, whom we entrusted to choose our selections for us.


This morning we rent a car and head to out for other beaches for better boogie boarding.

A talk show host on Chicago radio (Steve Dahl) used to have this guy on a lot (probably still does). I'm not a huge fan of Hawaiian music but this guy's really good.

Looks like a blast, Rob. Live it up.

Great dolphin story, Rob. The biggest disappointment from my honeymoon in Tahiti (aside from my wife catching a stomach virus for 3 days in Bora Bora) was not being able to go out on one of the "swim with the dolphins" tours. The timing just never worked out--either the boats were sold out or they took the day off.

Did you take any underwater pix with a disposable waterproof camera? That'd be rad.

No. A couple of the Japanese kids on the boat had one and Tommy snapped some shots for them. Oh well.

Yeah, Westermat, gotta do this one if you're staying on O'Ahu.

So, I've really turned into a big fan of surfing over the last few years. I watch every movie I can find. I'm happy to be a fan from afar.

Needless to say, I was very excited to head to the north shore yesterday where the waves are intense in the winter.

First stop was Sunset Beach. Again, my good camera is broken so I wasn't able to get any worthwhile shots of surfers as they are pretty far off shore. There's "no swimming" signs posted on all north shore beaches but that doesn't stop the sufers or others from frolicking on the shore.
Sunset is great for surfer watching but the bottom near the shore is alot of rock/coral. Here's me tempting fate.


Next, we headed south to Waimea Bay. Here's me in our rented Wrangler overlooking the bay.


Parking is a bitch up north so we ended up parking on the road. From above the waves didn't look to promising but I soon found the best boogie boarding of my life.
My girlfriend had a hard time catching me in action with the camera. In one shot you'll see just the very top of my head as the wave came crashing down. I had one bad ride in which I rode too far out front and slammed hard on the shore, jarring my shoulder and neck.


Me running from a wave I wasn't ready for.

Kat is totally unattractive, get over it

There's also a large rock where people, mostly kids, cliff dive here at Waimea.


I thought I'd do it after watching a video on YouTube prior to the trip but I chickened out.

Here's the video. And, no, the girl in the red suit wasn't there. Damn.

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And here's some crazy intense surf at Waimea from almost exactly a year ago.

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Today we head to the top of Diamond head and then beaches on the windward side (southeast) where boogie boarding is supposed to be the best.

Slight change of plans as we head out this morning. Waves on north shore are to be 12 to 16 ft. Looks like we'll just circle the island counter clock-wise and hopefully catch a show like that video above.

By the way, weather has been sunny and 82 with a low of 68 every day. Clouds and slight chance of rain in the mountains at times. But nothing but sun on the shores.

Which beach is it--Waimea or Sunset--where the sand, if you look at it on your fingertips, is all just really teensie seashells?

Do you plan a trip to the AZ memorial? That's interesting in a grim way.

Hmmm...didn't look at the sand too close. I know that on the west coast it's hard packed.

Drove by Pearl Harbor yesterday on the way back to Waikiki. My girlfriend's done the tour. Though I'm sure it's interesting, I really didn't want to fit it in the agenda.

Yeah, went there as a kid. I'd prolly have gotten more out of it had I been older, but wouldn't want to go back.

Got to the trail head of Diamond Head at 7am. Perfect time. The sunrise bus tours are coming down and the heat of the day is not upon you as you hike up. Here's us at the top overlooking Waikiki and Honolulu.


Then we headed up the windward coast. I'm not sharing all our pix or some of our stops here. If you want to know anything specifically or things I haven't mentioned, let me know. Here's a view of the rocky coast portion. Near the beach where they filmed the famous scene in From Here To Eternity.


I'd planned to go boogie boarding at Sandy Beach. Supposedly the best spot for it, but the waves were to intense. Here's a lifeguard putting up the signs.
It's great beach though because you can pull your car right up to the shore.


The most beautiful beach on O'ahu is Kailua Bay. A long, narrow, arching beach lined with pines on the edge and gorgeous turquoise water.


Later we headed up to the north shore again. No one was surfing at Sunset because the waves were breaking in a particular fashion and was too shallow. All the action was at Waimea Bay.
Lifeguards constantly had to tell people to move back from the shore as groups of large waves would come in. No one was allowed in unless a surfer or boogie boarder with foot fins. That was fine with me because it was intense. Saw some true surfing though.



Today we head back to Kailua Bay just to chill.

Rob, If you go out to the Western edge of Waikiki you should walk through the gardens of the Hawaiiana Hotel, it's really a nice little place.

And do make time for a drink at La Mariana Sailing Club. You should only go there for dinner if you need the experience of actually eating in the last Old School Tiki Bar in the Islands, or if you need to soak up lots of Rum.

About five years ago, I was at a conference in Springfield, IL. I stopped by a martini bar with about seven female twenty-something students. The bouncer winked at me going in. We stayed for a few minutes, and, on the way out, with a bunch of really good looking women waiting for me to come out, I coincidentally ran into a friend from my masters program, so I stayed about fifteen more minutes to chat. As I exited the bar, the bouncer looked at me and said "Buddy, you're my hero."

Rob, you're my hero.

Never been to Hawaii, so I've got nothing to add to this thread, but it's good to see you having fun out there, Rob.

Thanks Wester and Waylon.
Wester, you're gonna love it here.
Freddie, I would've taken you up on that but too late now. Take note Westermat.

Spent yesterday just relaxing at Kailua most of the day. Due to the tradewinds which have kicked up the last couple of days, boogie boarding on the north end of this beach has been fabulous. Not dangerous at all, like Waimea or Sandy Beach. Just easy waves with good rides to shore.

We had dinner once again at Odoriko, sitting at the sushi bar and chatting with Taka. A must for anyone coming here. Though he only works Mondays and Thursdays as far as I can tell. He's a marshal arts dojo as well as an excellent sushi chef. In fact, he's heading back to Japan in May to try and obtain his 6th star in some sort of arts which features a stick and extensive dress. I couldn't figure out what word he was saying that named the discipline.

We were heading home tomorrow but it looks like we'd be stuck at Houston airport all day Sunday trying trying to get on a flight. So we've booked ourselves to Newark on a 9:30pm departure. This way we're home Saturday night and Sunday to get settled back home (read shovel the 2 feet of snow out of my driveway. Hopefully the temps yesterday melted some of it. Then it's Monday and St. Patrick's Day. Time to get hammered on the downtown streets of Cleveland. Nice planning, huh?

We do have most of the day today so we're heading to Kailua once more because, after all, for me, this is a beach vacation.